Most importantly, we've been updating it regularly since November with subsequent Blizzard coverage and talent calculator updates. In the past few weeks alone, there's been a ton of new information released that we've added to our comprehensive guide. Even if you've browsed our guide when it was first released, there's bound to be something new for every topic now!

Comments

Comment by Ghostwhowalks

on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:38:39 -0600

Just go to Elitist Jerks (or Tankspot, etc.). The only threads with any activity now are the ones about MoP talents and mechanics (i.e., about stuff that isn't in the game and probably never will be). Releasing this information now is a PR move (as was releasing MoP videos and instance maps before Deathwing was even in the game). Blizzard can say that "4.3 was very successful" in interviews, but their actions (both before and after 4.3 was released) clearly show that they knew it would flop. The price to pay was no BlizzCon 2012 (as some people predicted).

I'm going to need something a bit more specific than that, my friend. "Just Google it, it's everywhere" and hearsay just doesn't cut it. Find me a link to a specific conversation and then I'll be a bit more inclined to believe you.

You mean the same developers who created that situation in the first place? So, are they so short-sighted that they couldn't see that concentrating every portal and relevant NPC in the capital would force everyone to use it as their "waiting room" ? Or was that their actual "vision" for the game, which they're now trying to disown because enough people are complaining?

The current designers say a lot of things. Everything is "working as intended" right up to the point where it's totally reversed. They're just shooting in random directions, often the opposite ones from 6 months ago, and you're kidding yourself if you think that is going to change.

Isn't it a wonderful world that we live in, where making a mistake does not damn a person for life? Yeah, they made a few screw-ups, it happens. If you think doing it wrong the first time disqualifies you from ever getting it right on the second or third try, I have a few high-end raiding guilds for you to talk to. They had ideas, they experimented, they made a few mistakes. If anything, I see them learning from their mistakes and trying to do better. It's what designers do. "Working as intended" didn't start with WoW or even Ghostcrawler's team, and it won't end there. You have to remember that they're a business, and if they don't give optimistic PR, they lose their funding.

In fact, this act of learning from mistakes is perfectly illustrated by Tol Barad. It used to be that defending the zone was as simple as gathering up into a big zerg ball and cycling through the bases until time ran out. After some tinkering, now winning Tol Barad is an actual strategic exercise, and despite the slight advantage for attackers, I have both won as defense and lost as offense plenty of times to know that anything can happen; what used to be mere Honor farming is now a fun battle to take part in, thanks to Ghostcrawler and team recognizing the mistake they made and fixing it.

If you think that moving around the game world (and integrating monsters / PvP / instances / raids / etc. into that world) is "cumbersome" or "needlessly time-consuming", maybe you shouldn't be playing an open-world MMO. Feeling that you're in a living world is precisely the point of WoW, and that's what made it successful in the first place (the invasions, the war effort, the opening of the gates of Ahn-Qiraj, Stitches killing half of Darkshire, etc.) . If it was just "press a button to do an instance you've already done 500 times before", it wouldn't have attracted as many players as it did, and it certainly wouldn't have held them for as long as it used to.

Ah, but you misunderstand me, sir. Moving through the world isn't cumbersome. Wasting time on travel and nothing else is. Think about this; before the Dungeon Finder, how did you typically get to the dungeon entrance? Most people would say a flightpath, and when you're riding a taxi, you can't DO anything else until you reach your destination; flipping through a magazine sure is some stimulating gameplay, isn't it? Using a flying mount is another choice, and while you have the option to stop midway to the objective, why would you? There's nothing that can dismount you or obstruct your path, and sure, you might see a rare mob on the ground or an enemy player, but why would you stop when you're trying to get to your dungeon?

So that leaves people who are of a low enough level that they're restricted to ground mounts. Not only does it take an obscene amount of time to reach some of those dungeons on foot, but anything that impedes your path is considered a nuisance and not something exciting. PvP is even worse; if you're leveling a character, odds are the only time you see a hostile player is someone at max level who just wiped out your questing hub. Fantastic, I spent $15 to spend half of the month standing around and waiting for my quest NPCs to respawn and not be killed instantly by an enemy who is untouchable at my current level (exaggeration, but you see my point).

Yes, I absolutely want to be in a living, changing, open-world game, but there kind of needs to be a reason for me to hang around in these lower-level zones. Now, it would be great if we could earn rewards for attacking an enemy town or defending ours, or if there were random groups of level-appropriate enemy mobs roaming areas, attacking players and towns. It would be great if there were outdoor dungeons that I could explore and run into some random person to team up with. It would be great if, say, there was a daily PvP objective to either attack an enemy zone or defend one of yours (not like Tol Barad/Wintergrasp, though those are good, but something like "defend/destroy the towns in Silverpine"), concentrating large numbers of players into a zone to fight over it in an epic, zone-wide battle. But there isn't, and the last time that sort of thing happened was the Tarren Mill/Southshore wars in Vanilla, and you know what? They only did that because Battlegrounds weren't as accessible.

As for the invasions, well...they still did that. The Cataclysm elemental invasion? That was awesome. But having that go on every day, like clockwork, for months on end, would not only make it difficult for people to access services in the affected areas, but would get boring after enough time.

There needs to be a balance of both accessibility for leveling players and content for endgame players; favor one or the other too heavily and you either make it too difficult for new players to get into the game ("hey, you want to join me on Warcraft? Check out all these awesome things you can do at level 80! Savor it while you can, because you'll have a few months of grinding to go through before you can really enjoy it yourself") or you have a legion of max-level players sitting around with nothing to do. Which brings me to my next point...

If the current designers really had any intention of making the open world more relevant at high levels, they would have done so with Cataclysm. It was the perfect opportunity; a lot of areas were being reworked anyway, and the story gave them a great excuse to add a few level 80-90 areas and bosses around Azeroth. Instead, what they did was concentrate everyone even more into the cities (in fact, into a single city per faction), and speed up levelling so the game world became even less relevant.

WoW has been sinking since mid-WotLK and will continue to sink as long as the current short-sighted people are at the helm. Players aren't leaving WoW because of Rift or Aion or SWTOR or any other game; they're leaving WoW because of WoW.

See, that statement is interesting, because WoW actually had a record number of subscribers during Cataclysm's early months, which doesn't quite sound like sinking to me. The substantial loss of numbers came because of, you guessed it, lack of endgame content. Tier 11 was small by previous expansion standards, and Firelands was even worse. Heroics were a brick wall for several months, with the amount of time needed to invest into successfully completing them being nowhere near the rewards you got. Hardcore raiders burned through this content in weeks and had nothing else to do, while many people below them got fed up with the new Heroics and quit. You think asking people to invest even more time into travel and throwing a few random stuff into the open world would've fixed that?

Comment by kgurnhill

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:51:20 -0600

If anyone says "MoP will suck... ima quit when its released!" then i place you into a category i got reserved for people like you!I call it "Liars" You will buy the expansion... just like i will!Like a woman, blizzards got us whipped!

Comment by Fanatick

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:51:44 -0600

Nice, thank's for update.

Comment by Mantrhax

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:35:05 -0600

lol its nice see the dogs runing around to catch the crumbs that blizzard is throwing away , really funny !

Comment by Soldrethar

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:05:16 -0600

=/ the calm before the storm is always the harshest and most brutal to endure.

It wasn't easy waiting for WOTLK at the end of TBC, wasn't easy to wait for CATA at the end of WOTLK, and now isn't easy to wait for MoP at the end of cata.

I know that feel bro :(

Comment by Rankkor

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:09:00 -0600

lol its nice see the dogs runing around to catch the crumbs that blizzard is throwing away , really funny !

jeez, what's with that attitude mister? I derive entertainment from this game, and so I play it. The day I no longer have fun in it I'll move onto something else.

Where's the need to be calling me a dog just to have FUN while playing a GAME?

Comment by Adamsm

lol its nice see the dogs runing around to catch the crumbs that blizzard is throwing away , really funny !

No offense, but as you seem to dislike Blizzard, why are you here posting insulting comments at the rest of the player base?

Comment by Rankkor

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:46:23 -0600

lol its nice see the dogs runing around to catch the crumbs that blizzard is throwing away , really funny !

Where's the need to be calling me a dog just to have FUN while playing a GAME?

You're kind of proving his point. If you were "having fun playing the game", you wouldn't be here, reading and posting on a thread about things that aren't in the game, and will probably undergo major changes before release.

lol-what? logic error rite there.

Dude, I care about this game, and therefore that's why I'm here in the first place. I wanna know what's in store for the future. I'm reading and posting about stuff that isn't in the game because I'm eager to know what's gonna happen next, and while much of this will undergo major changes before release I still don't care, I love this expansion and wanna know as much about it as I can.

The REAL question is what are YOU (and any who hates wow) doing here. If you all hate this game so much, if you no longer have any fun playing it, if you honest-to-god think that anyone who still enjoys wow is just a dog leaping for scraps thrown by blizzard, then why are YOU reading about it?

Its sorta like someone who just read a Twilight novel, hated it, then spent the next 2 years on twilight-fan forums moaning about everything, complaining about any info regarding future novels, and deriding anyone who says anything possitive about the novel.

Dude if you don't like the product: the door is right there ---------------------------> walk through it, don't let it slam you on the ass, and please dont come back.

Comment by Adamsm

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:46:53 -0600

lol its nice see the dogs runing around to catch the crumbs that blizzard is throwing away , really funny !

Where's the need to be calling me a dog just to have FUN while playing a GAME?

You're kind of proving his point. If you were "having fun playing the game", you wouldn't be here, reading and posting on a thread about things that aren't in the game, and will probably undergo major changes before release.

How? I mean, really, we want to know about the things that are coming, since a lot of us will be playing in the next expansion. Of course, if you notice, Mantrhax got a warning about his comment so.....

Comment by Rankkor

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:51:04 -0600

lol its nice see the dogs runing around to catch the crumbs that blizzard is throwing away , really funny !

Where's the need to be calling me a dog just to have FUN while playing a GAME?

You're kind of proving his point. If you were "having fun playing the game", you wouldn't be here, reading and posting on a thread about things that aren't in the game, and will probably undergo major changes before release.

How? I mean, really, we want to know about the things that are coming, since a lot of us will be playing in the next expansion. Of course, if you notice, Mantrhax got a warning about his comment so.....

that statement of his that if I was really having fun means " I wouldn't be here reading and posting on a thead about things that arent in the game" is probably the most STUPID statement I've read this year.

And considering I visit frequently the official blizz forums, the official SWTOR forums, and the MMO-champion forums I hear plenty of stupid every day.

Seriously, doing research on future additions to a game that I enjoy is wrong? only people dissatisfied with wow should be diging up info on MoP? where's the logic in that? come on man, help me out here cuz I'm not really seeing your point. Quite the oposite really.

Comment by Adamsm

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:07:24 -0600

So, what does it say about the people who say 'That's it, I'm done with this piece of #$%^ game!', then they stick around for the full purpose of insulting and attacking people who still play the game? I mean really; why should we deal with asses and jerks who don't care about the game anymore and should go and find better uses with their own times?

Comment by Adamsm

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:27:09 -0600

So you're basically saying that if someone used to be (for example) a basketball player but doesn't play anymore, he or she shouldn't be allowed to make any comments about basketball, or about the reasons why he or she stopped playing? Or should that law apply only to people making comments that you happen to disagree with?

They are free to say why they gave up the game, but does that give them the right to keep insulting people who are still playing the game?

And who are these "people" you talk about? I don't see anyone "attacking" you. You are the one describing people you've never even met as "asses" and "jerks", and telling them what they should be doing.

I've seen lots of people attack others...between the 'fanboi' comments, the reference to anyone still playing the game are idiots/throwing away money/etc etc, it's there. And honestly yes I do feel if they don't play the game anymore and aren't coming back, what the point of still posting on a WoW fan site, if all they are going to do is just attack and insult the player base for their own choices?

Edit: But then again, the mods of this site agree with that type of thinking so......

Comment by Rankkor

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:56:00 -0600

The time you spend here reading "about things that are coming" (which aren't really coming; they're all going to go through another 5 or 6 rounds of changes) is time you're not spending playing the game you supposedly enjoy so much.

so.......... according to you I should spend every single waking hour and minute of every day of every week of every month of every year playing?

dude I DO have a life you know? a job, a family, and responsibilities. I play the game, and I enjoy it, but as with all things in life, I do so moderately. Furthermore, my gametime expired yesterday, and since I got bills to pay, I wont be getting another one till at least april (I'm getting a new PC, so the first payments will leave my wallet a bit lighter than usual)

So again, acording to you I should be spending every single minute of my life on the game? that doesn't really make any sense whatsoever, and further confirms your own lack of logic, and common sense.

The information Blizzard has released about MoP is meant to be "crumbs" to keep people interested when the game itself doesn't.

another stupid line from a stupid poster.

So when a movie director releases a trailer about an upcoming movie, its because the fans HATE the current one, and the trailers and sneak peeks are meant to keep them entertained till the sequel arrives?

When a book excerpt is released showing the first chapter its because the prequel sucks and its meant to keep the reader interested because the book itself doesn't?

STUPID.

Please don't be an idiot.

Even valve released small doses of info on Half-Life 2 when it was still in development, and it wasn't to keep players intrested "cuz the first game sucks". it was to draw future players into the franchise by showing what lays in the future.

And being a dog isn't so bad; you get free food, access to that cute spaniel next door, and I hear the next expansion pack to Fetch is amazing (have you looked at those redesigned wooden sticks?)

you know what? I'm done trying to speak to an idiot. This crap could be contagious, so I'm gonna leave you to wallow in your own ignorance.

Comment by Adamsm

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:11:05 -0600

It's quite likely that a lot of people who aren't currently subscribers have a lot more experience with WoW than you do, paid a lot more in subscription fees than you have, and were responsible for making WoW a commercial and social success in the first place (building fan sites and compiling item databases with no help from Blizzard, etc.).

But hey, if you don't want to be exposed to their opinions, that's totally your right. Maybe you could stick to the official forums or, better yet, to the in-game chat. That way you'd be sure that everything you read was being posted by someone who has recently paid Blizzard, which makes their opinion a lot more valuable.

Also, if you ever find yourself in a cult, gang or extremist political party, don't listen to anyone from the outside. If they're not card-carrying members, they have no business talking about it.

Yes, and the negative nellies are sooooo much better to listen to.

Comment by Rankkor

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:12:44 -0600

It's quite likely that a lot of people who aren't currently subscribers have a lot more experience with WoW than you do, paid a lot more in subscription fees than you have, and were responsible for making WoW a commercial and social success in the first place (building fan sites and compiling item databases with no help from Blizzard, etc.).

But hey, if you don't want to be exposed to their opinions, that's totally your right.

damn right it is.

When someone is calling me a dog just because I enjoy a game, and then there's this second user (Clueless as a rock ) who says that if I was truly enjoying the game, I wouldn't be here, but rather playing the game "Cuz every second here, is a second you're not in the game, herp-derp" you bet your ass I'm gonna say something about it.

Edit:

Maybe you could stick to the official forums or, better yet, to the in-game chat. That way you'd be sure that everything you read was being posted by someone who has recently paid Blizzard, which makes their opinion a lot more valuable.

Also, if you ever find yourself in a cult, gang or extremist political party, don't listen to anyone from the outside. If they're not card-carrying members, they have no business talking about it.

its not so much that I'm tired of people like you whining about the game, so much as I'm tired of people like you whining about the game CONSTANTLY.

Jesuschrist, man, if you hate the game, GO ALREADY.

I've had my disapointments with games in the past too. I used to be a HARDCORE Lineage II player, for nearly 4 years I was a loyal customer, and a dedicated fan, even got a couple of realm firsts back on my day. (my clan held Castle Dion for nearly 2 years).

When the game started to disapoint me, I said why I didn't liked the direction the game was going, and then, after seeing that it just kept getting worst, I just packed up my stuff and left.

Its one thing to express your opinion, and another to do it over and over and over and over and over again. This is a wow FAN site, for FANS OF WOW (Duh). IF you're here to insult fans of the game for the simple fact that they still enjoy it, you bet I'm gonna say something about it.

Comment by asakawa

on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:42:19 -0600

This discussion has become a real problem. If the participants are unable to carry out a respectful discussion where you debate people's ideas without attacking or insulting others then their contributions will be quite unwelcome.

I strongly suggest the previous topic be dropped and those who have been losing their cool walk away from the whole thread. If the bickering continues then I will be forced to remove several posts from the thread and take action on people's accounts.

Comment by Ghostwhowalks

on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:51:59 -0600

So the fact that something "is everywhere" is irrelevant, but a link to one conversation would be conclusive evidence? I hope you don't work as a statistician.

Anyway, I'm not your "friend" and I really couldn't care less whether you "believe" me or not. Facts don't require faith. If you're interested, go do your own research. But, judging from your claim below, I guess you prefer to live inside a reality distortion field.

Evidence, sir, I'm asking for evidence. Show me something concrete. Are or are you not trying to convince me of your position? And if you don't care whether I believe you or not, why even bother responding to my initial comments in the first place?It is also disappointing that you don't wish to carry the discussion in a polite and gentlemanly manner. Am I not allowed to be friendly with one who disagrees with me?

Not true.

About 55% of WoW subscriptions are from China, and when Cataclysm was being released in Europe and the US, China was getting Wrath. In other words, the "record number" you're talking about refers to the point when Chinese players (who were, up to that point, playing TBC, and whose opinion of the game was shaped by their experience with TBC), bought WotLK.

Subscriptions in the west (US + Europe) have been declining since late 2008 (they started declining 1Q after the release of WotLK, and never increased after that, although the decline got worse after Catalcysm). Subscriptions in the east peaked with the release of WotLK in China (1Q before the release of Cataclysm in the west) and have also been declining since.

Though, you might want to check the charts you linked a little more closely. First, I wasn't wholly wrong; worldwide subscribers did hit a record high during Cataclysm's release. Sure, we could haggle over how much the Chinese subscribers contributed to that number and why, but the fact still remains. Admittedly, it wasn't entirely for the reason that I brought it up to begin with, but I hope you'll forgive me an honest mistake, as I am about to forgive you.

See, looking at the charts, there are a few things you might notice. First, the decline did not occur in late 2008, it was mid-2009. The biggest dip in numbers in there is due primarily to loss of subscribers in the eastern market, i.e. China. What were Chinese players doing around that time? Playing Burning Crusade for over a year. They were, like we are now, suffering from end-of-expansion depression. The existing content had been played out and Chinese players with nothing to do were unsubscribing. As you'll notice, the Chinese numbers are still doing well today, going through an expansion-release spike and then leveling out, though nowhere near the drop in western numbers who were playing Cataclysm (I'll get to that in a minute, but if Wrath is where the "taint" of Ghostcrawler set in, wouldn't the Chinese be reacting more negatively to Wrath?). Now for our numbers surrounding Cataclysm's release. There are two major factors one could point to for an explanation; end-of-expansion depression with Wrath, and then the staggering difficulty spike and lack of endgame content with Cataclysm. Competition from Rift and SWTOR (note that their influence could be felt even before their release, since people planning to switch over would unsubscribe from WoW even before their new game came out. And when were those two games announced? Oh yes, mid 2009.) has also served to siphon subscribers away.

Being the lead designer of a game like WoW doesn't work that way. It's not something you can learn on the job. If you're "experimenting" or trying out disconnected "ideas", you're doing it wrong. Coders and artists and writers can work that way, but not a lead designer. A lead designer needs one idea. One huge idea; a vision for the entire game. The details might need to be tweaked (limited) to what is technically feasible, but that global vision of the world has to be there. Without it, the game won't have a soul.

Really? I would have to disagree with that my fr- er, sir. I see plenty of vision in the parts of the game that GC's team has had control over, particularly the increased narrative and flow when leveling through a zone. Other ideas, like the higher health-to-damage/healing ratio and the vehicles of Wrath, weren't as well-received or worked out as intended, but don't you think you're expecting too much when you ask for a developer to only implement changes they know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, will work? Take a look at SWTOR. The intention for Illium was a PvP questing zone, but players tended to ignore each other and simply pursue their quests. Then when they upped the rewards, it swung in the complete opposite direction and the zone became a massive camp-fest on faction-imbalanced servers. Game developers are only human, prone to fallibility and error.

Ghostcrawler's problem (and the reason why giving him yet "another chance" is a mistake) is not that his vision is different from the original designers. It's that he doesn't have one. When a new captain says "we were going north but now we'll be going west", that's one thing. Maybe you'll reach land, maybe you won't. But when the new captain just changes direction randomly every couple of days, you know the ship (and all its crew) is in trouble.

Here's the second issue with your statements: the idea that GC would somehow turn WoW completely on its head and send it into some bold new direction. A tad unrealistic, don't you think? Especially when the game already had several years of precedent, they couldn't change the game completely to match some new vision that they had for the game, they had to build off of what was already there. They've made some tweaks and additions here and there, but primarily to whatever content they had control over at the time of a newly-released expansion. You're asking them to make a WoW 2, but all they're allowed to do are make updates to the existing engine.

IN FACT, part of the issue people have had with Cataclysm (the difficulty spike and renewed importance of CC) is due to the developers' desire to return to Burning Crusade days, as so many people have been requesting. Um...it didn't go over so well.

Anyway, I couldn't care less how many millions of people play WoW (they're spread across hundreds of realms anyway; most servers have less than 15k active players). When I said "WoW has been sinking" I meant in terms of gameplay and social atmosphere. The loss of subscriptions just shows that WoW players aren't all addicts and are aware of the declining quality (especially the ones that remember vanilla and TBC, but even "wrathbabies" are beginning to see it now).

Comment by starbrezze

on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 06:30:04 -0600

I so happy i gave up on wow before i had to se this @#$% !

Comment by starbrezze

on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 06:35:32 -0600

all these dumb ass !@#s here loving the idea of pandas and stuff, thats why blizzz made MoP cuz half the player fanbase is kids and teens who love that kiddy #$%^. blizz failed hard with cata and moP does not look like its gonna bring any vet players back. the game was at its paramount in wotlk , and cata showed just how clouded one can get when money is involved...

Lol; Wrath was the best? Hardly; that introduced the 'kid' aspect into the game, since you could just face roll through everything without needing to learn any mechanics beyond spamming AoE's.

Beyond that, considering your name, probably best you'll be gone...though you'd think, you'd want to see the Pandas and the new areas, probably would be soothing to your eyes while hitting the ganja.

So true "the 'kid' aspect"

WOW is now a kid and noob game

Blizz are so greedy that they ruin the game, and drove off the real gamers.

Have fun in fluffy easy pandaria a world of kids and noobs!

Comment by Astygia

on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 06:55:50 -0600

Looking over your posts in this thread, it's quite obvious you just don't like the direction the game is going / has been going, and no amount of argument (friendly or otherwise) is going to sink in. The real question is, why are you here?

Suffice to say, you are one of the playerbase, but you are not the playerbase. Your opinion is just one of millions. It really doesn't matter how many of those millions are Chinese or whatnot (I read a strange feeling of isolationism / indifference in your comments related to other-than-you subs...your home country is not the world, FYI.)

Personally, at first I didn't like where MoP was going, then I did, then I didn't, and now I'm pretty okay with it. While I don't actually care for the new race coming (not because it's omg kungfupanda, as the ignorant like to say - I also don't care for Tauren or Gnomes), I am excited about the new talent system. It's not a random reshuffle as you've insisted (one wonders if you even know what random means or how it makes any sense whatsoever to label it as such... please don't quote dictionary.com). It's an attempt to redesign how we build our characters, and a way to allow actual customization back into the process and game as a whole.

I've said this before in other threads but I'll use the example again. Let's say you are an arcane mage, and you run into a blood dk in your BG. If you and he are worth your salt, you both know exactly what the other is capable of doing simply from a passing glance - bone shield or abom's might tells you all you need to know about him, and armor buff / self buffs tell him all he needs to know about you. You both know every tool at each other's disposal, and the order in which you'll use said tools depending on how the battle flows. It's less strategy and more waiting until x cooldown has been forced before you use y ability, so on and so forth. Arena is much the same (and yes I have upper-bracket experience in 2's and 3's, before you assume otherwise).

Under the upcoming system...neither of you will know what the other is capable of doing until it's used against you. No class will know this. No arena team of any bracket will be able to immediately identify the zero target (at least, not nearly as easily) because you don't know what the other guy's packing.

Both of these situations are strategy...but the upcoming one, sounds a hell of a lot more fun to me than the way things are currently. Just the talent system alone is a pretty big source of excitement, but of course new gameplay content, a whole new class that I might end up loving more than my rogue, of course new artwork and equipment...these are exciting things to await for my hobby. I'm not much of a pet collector so the pet-battle thing (which, to be fair, anyone who's heard of pokemon or monster rancher will immediately think of those) isn't very exciting to me... but that's just me. There's a lot of folks that love their pets and will enjoy the hell out of it.

If you prefer a more PvP-centric (and overall hardcore) style of gaming, I recommend Aion. If you want simpler PvE, go ToR.

I could go on but you don't wanna read my wall of text. Short of the long - just because you don't like it, doesn't make it bad, and doesn't make everyone else who does like it, in the wrong. If you're that unhappy, there's an ocean of other games out there, jump in.